The Battle of Tannenberg

The Battle of Tannenberg (August 26–30, 1914) was a decisive engagement between the Russian Empire and the German Empire during the early days of World War I. It took place near Tannenberg in present-day Poland and resulted in a crushing victory for Germany. The battle saw the encirclement and destruction of the Russian Second Army, led by General Alexander Samsonov, by German forces under the command of Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. This victory halted the Russian advance into East Prussia and established Hindenburg and Ludendorff as prominent military leaders in the war.

Tannenberg—Cataclysm of Knights

Introduction

On the morning of July 15, 1410, two armies drew up on opposite sides of a field in central Poland in what would be one of the largest battles ever fought in medieval Europe, involving over 50,000 combatants, many of them knights in full armor. On one side were the fearsome Teutonic Knights, supported by knights from Kulm, Konigsberg, and Brandenburg. The other side consisted of the combined armies of Poland and Lithuania. The subsequent Battle of Tannenberg would be a grim, violent affair that ended with the near destruction of one side and helped to determine the borders of Eastern Europe for many centuries to come.

The Teutonic Knights

• (1) During the Crusades, a number of new monastic orders formed, whose members took the usual religious vows but trained as knights. The most famous of these orders were the Templars and the Hospitallers, both of which were based in the Holy Land and played important roles in the history of the Crusades.
• (2) A third major order of fighting monks, founded around the same time and originally based in Acre in the Holy Land, truly began to flourish when they established outposts in Europe. These were the Teutonic Knights; as the name implies, they were mainly Germanic, and they eventually focused their attention almost entirely on Northern and Eastern Europe.
• (3) Their chosen opponents were the last remaining European pagans, found in Prussia, Lithuania, and other parts of northeastern Europe. The Knights set up a network of massive castles from which they launched their raids, and they aggressively pursued their chosen enemies, steadily expanding their territory and driving east. This expansion brought them into conflict with Poland, setting the stage for the Battle of Tannenberg.
• (4) At the time of Tannenberg, the grandmaster of the order was Ulrich von Jungingen, from a noble southern German family. Over the years, he served in nearly every major position in the Teutonic Knights’ hierarchy, including marshal of the order and commander of a castle. Although he was an effective military leader, contemporary sources describe him as headstrong, arrogant, and a bit impulsive.
• (5) The number of full-fledged ordained warriors equipped with complete suits of plate armor and mounted on great chargers probably amounted to only a few hundred. They were supplemented by a much larger number of Teutonic lay brothers, who trained as knights but were not ordained and fought as somewhat less heavily armed horsemen.
• (6) Each castle also had larger numbers of hired men-at-arms, professional fighting men of lower social status. They mainly fulfilled the roles of light cavalry, foot soldiers, archers, and crossbowmen.
• (7) Finally, the Teutonic Knights made extensive use of noblemen from many countries, who volunteered to serve temporarily as a demonstration of piety but were not part of the formal membership. Each of these guest Crusaders would have been accompanied by his own entourage of squires and fighting men.

The Poles and the Lithuanians

• (1) In the late 14th century, the youngest daughter of the reigning king of Hungary was a girl named Jadwiga, who received an excellent education and spoke Hungarian, German, Polish, Latin, Bosnian, and Serbian. When she was 10 years old, through a complex series of events, she became the heir to the throne of Poland and was crowned king.
• (2) Meanwhile, a succession crisis was going on in Lithuania, and great pressure was being exerted to convert this last pagan nation in Europe to Christianity. A young duke named Jagiello emerged as the dominant candidate. Jagiello had been raised a pagan, but he converted to Orthodox Christianity. Because he now wanted to marry Jadwiga, he agreed to become Roman Catholic.
• (3) In 1386, the two married, and the countries of Poland and Lithuania were united; in 1387, Lithuania officially became a Christian country. Although many hailed the conversion of Jagiello as representing the final triumph of Christianity over the last European outpost of paganism, others, including the Teutonic Knights, dismissed it as insincere and, thus, to be ignored.
• (4) Jagiello faced threats to his control of Lithuania, foremost from his cousin Vytautas, who had persuaded the Teutonic Knights to undertake several military actions against Lithuania, given that they refused to recognize Jagiello as a genuine Christian monarch.
• (5) After several years, Jagiello and Vytautas agreed to shelve their differences and their rivalry and, instead, work together for the benefit of Lithuania. This somewhat unlikely-seeming alliance proved to be long-lasting and highly effective.
• (6) In practical terms, Jagiello was the nominal ruler of Lithuania, but Vytautas oversaw day-to-day affairs. In 1399, Queen Jadwiga died, leaving Jagiello the king of Poland in both name and reality.

The Campaign

• (1) The situation was volatile, and the spark that ignited it into open warfare was a rebellion against the Teutonic Knights by the inhabitants of a region called Samogitia in western Lithuania. With Ulrich taking a hard line in negotiations, Jagiello and Vytautas were determined to launch an invasion of the Knights’ territory.
• (2) Lithuania hoped to recover Samogitia, and Poland hoped to acquire a lost province of its own, Pomerania. To achieve these aims, Jagiello and Vytautas decided to launch a strike northwards towards the Knights’ main stronghold at Marienbad.
• (3) As the allied army marched north, the Knights’ army shadowed their movements, and eventually, the two forces drew together between the villages of Tannenberg and Grunwald. Most modern analysts believe that the army of the Teutonic Knights had 25,000 to 30,000 men, and the allied army of the Poles and Lithuanians had about 40,000 to 55,000.

The Battle

• (1) On July 15, 1410, the two armies faced off across a shallow valley. The elite of the Teutonic Knights were deployed on the left side of the line, while the guest Crusaders constituted the right wing. On the other side, the Lithuanians formed the allied army’s right wing, facing the Knights, while the Poles were deployed on the left.
• (2) The combined Polish-Lithuanian army swept forward along the line, and the two sides crashed in a head-on conflict. This phase of intense hand-to-hand combat continued for nearly an hour, with neither side giving way.
• (3) Then, abruptly, the Lithuanians and some of the allied forces on the right wing pulled back and apparently went into full retreat. This incident is controversial, with commentators both ancient and modern disagreeing widely as to its cause.
  (a) Some claim that it was a planned retreat designed to lure the Knights out of their formation and scatter them, in which vulnerable condition they could then be counterattacked. This was a classic move used by steppe horsemen, and the Lithuanians were well acquainted with it from their experience fighting the Mongols.
  (b) Others maintain that it was a genuine retreat and that the Lithuanians were forced to fall back under pressure from the heavily armored knights. Whether real or feigned, the allied army’s right wing withdrew, and the guest Crusaders surged forward.
• (4) Despite the collapse of the right, the Poles held firm in the center and on the left, battling the Teutonic Knights. Some of the Poles now even drove into the gap created by the advance of the guest Crusaders and turned to threaten the exposed flank of the Knights.
• (5) At this crucial stage of the battle, Ulrich mounted his horse, gathered the reserve force of the Knights around him, and led a thundering charge in a wedge formation diagonally across the field and directly at the Polish royal eagle banner, under which he assumed he would find Jagiello.
• (6) Had they broken through the Polish ranks and killed Jagiello, this charge might well have won the battle, but Vytautas saw it coming and, collecting a force of his best-equipped knights, moved to intercept. A fierce battle ensued, but the charge lost its momentum and faltered just short of Jagiello.
• (7) The battle now turned decisively against the Germans. The remaining knights were assaulted from the rear by Polish light cavalry, while on the right, the Lithuanians swept back onto the field, trapping the returning guest Crusaders between them and the victorious Poles.
• (8) By the end of the day, between 10,000 and 15,000 on the German side were dead, with about the same number captured. It was a crushing defeat; the full-ranking Teutonic Knights were almost wiped out, with more than 200 lying dead on the battlefield, along with the entire leadership of the order.

Outcomes

• (1) Although the Knights would survive for quite a while after Tannenberg, their power was much reduced, and they went into a long decline. The Battle of Tannenberg helped to establish the borders of the states in Eastern Europe and effectively put an end to medieval German expansion into Poland and Lithuania.
• (2) The battle is perhaps even more important in symbolic terms.
  (a) For the Lithuanians and Poles, it represents a high point of national pride and achievement, especially with regard to resisting invaders.
  (b) In World War I, when the Germans won a major victory over the Russians near the site, they named the later battle Tannenberg as well and represented it as having avenged the earlier loss.
  (c) Some later Germans romanticized the Teutonic Knights as a group nobly trying to bring Christianity and civilization to backward parts of Europe. Nazi Germany, for example, portrayed its own seizing of eastern territory as a continuation of the Knights’ mission.
• (3) The Battle of Tannenberg was the last major battle of the Middle Ages and one of the last in which gunpowder did not play an important role. In terms of world history, it was the cusp of the vastly important Age of Exploration, when European seafarers began to establish links with the rest of the globe.

Conclusion

The Battle of Tannenberg underscored the importance of communication, coordination, and intelligence in modern warfare. It delayed Russian advances into German territory, allowing Germany to focus more on the Western Front. However, it also set the stage for the prolonged and brutal conflict that would characterize the Eastern Front throughout the war.

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